The present invention relates to construction strip, and more particularly to a construction strip with colorful protective coating shell and the manufacturing process thereof, wherein the colorful protective coating shell is integrally coated around a strip body and forms a colorful exterior protection layer that is durable and resists scratching.
Various kinds of construction strip, such as ceiling molding, skirting board, door frame, window frame, and furniture molding, are commonly used in interior construction and decoration. A conventional construction strip, no matter it is used as a ceiling molding, a skirting board, a door frame, a window frame, or a furniture molding, as shown in FIG. 1, comprises an elongated wooden strip body 10 having a predetermined length and stylish cross section. The strip body 10 has a rear surface 11 for attaching to the wall by means of nailing or gluing and a waved front surface 12 for decorating purpose.
Normally, a layer of paint must be provided on all exposed longitudinal surfaces of the strip body 10 so as to protect the wooden strip body 10 from moisture and to match the color painting of the wall or ceiling where the strip body 10 is affixed thereon. In view of such painting layer, the conventional wooden construction strip bears a plurality of unsolved shortcomings as follows:
(1) The painting process of the wooden construction strip is very troublesome and costly. The worker has to paint each construction strip manually before affixing to the wall. A lot of work and time must be involved that relatively increases the construction cost. Some construction strip manufacturers provide painted construction strips in market in order to lessen the labor of the constructors. The most efficient way for mass production of painted construction strip in factory is to spray paint on the wooden strip body by a painting machine. The painting machine generally comprises at least a spray gun which is driven to move up and down repeatedly and a feeding device for transmitting mass number of wooden strip bodies vertically towards the spray gun. While each strip body is passing by the spray gun, the strip body is driven to rotate and the spray gun is activated to move up and down and spray painting onto the rotating strip body, so that a layer of paint is applied on all longitudinal surfaces of the strip body.
How to apply painting evenly on all longitudinal surfaces of the strip body is one of the major problems of the spraying method of every strip body manufacturer. High efficiency and expensive painting machine is suggested to use in factory in order to produce strip bodies with better painting quality. Moreover, no matter what kind of painting machine is used, large amount of costly painting will be sprayed to the air during the spraying process, that causes unavoidable waste and pollution. Many chemicals in paint are harmfull to human body. In other words, all workers are exposed in a hazardous environment, therefore how to collect those waste painting becomes another big problem to the manufacturer.
(2) The painting layer on the wooden strip body has poor resistance against scratching. During transportation and constructing procedure, there is a great chance to cause scratch on the exterior painting layer of the construction strip and that, due to the soft nature of the wooden strip body, the strip body also has a big risk of being damaged by scratching or accidentally impacting.
(3) The edge portion of the painting layer of the construction strip will easily be peeled off when the construction strip is cut to desired size and shape.
(4) If plastic or metal made tubes or strips are used, it is more difficult to provide a durable painting layer thereon.
(5) The contour design of the construction strip must be limited to avoid any sharp indention or concave edge because it is very difficult to evenly apply or spray paint on such area.
It is thus a first object of the present invention to provide a construction strip which integrally provides a colorful protective coating shell thereon, wherein the protective coating shell has good resistance against scratching and peeling off.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a construction strip having a colorful protective coating shell integrally coated outside, wherein the protective coating shell is a waterproof hard shell wrapped around the interior strip body so as to shelter the strip body from moisture. Moreover, the user may wash the construction strip periodically.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a construction strip having a colorful protective coating shell integrally coated thereon, which is more durable and cheaper in cost in comparison with the conventional painted wooden construction strip.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a construction strip having a colorful protective coating shell integrally coated thereon, wherein the protective coating shell can be evenly coated on any indention or sharp edge formed on the strip body.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a manufacturing process of a construction strip having a colorfull protecting coating shell, which is more efficiency that can reduce the manufacturing cost and steps. Moreover, no paint will be waste and no air pollution will be caused during the manufacturing process.
In order to accomplish the above objects, the present invention provides a construction strip comprising an elongated strip body and a colorful protective coating shell, wherein the elongated strip body can be in form of strip, rod, tube or elongated board that has a uniform cross-sectional shape and a predetermined length. The strip body can be made of any constructive material such as wood, plastic or metal.
The protective coating shell which has a uniform thickness is integrally coated on the longitudinal exterior surfaces of the strip body so as to form a colorful shelter layer wrapping around the strip body. The protective coating shell is made of a dried coating mixture comprising a predetermined amount of paint and talcum powder, wherein the talcum powder is the basic content for forming the rigid the protective coating shell. The paint serves as a color content of the protective coating shell that provides the desired color and the daubing ability. In other words, the paint content in the protective coating shell enables the protective coating shell being integrally and firmly attached on the longitudinal exterior surfaces of the strip body and having a desired color. The presence of the talcum powder enables the protective coating shell having the specific properties of hardness, adhesion, solidification, scratching resistance, and rigidity.
The protective coating shell is coated on the strip body by means of an extrusion mold, in which the elongated strip body is forced to pass through an extrusion passage of the extrusion mold. The extrusion passage has a sectional size slightly larger than a sectional size of the strip body, so that a surrounding clearance is formed between an interior wall of the extrusion passage of the extrusion mold and the longitudinal exterior surfaces of the strip body. A plaster form coating mixture of paint, talcum powder and volatile agent is gradually injected into the extrusion passage to fill the surrounding clearance, so that the exterior surfaces of a portion of the strip body that is passing through the extrusion passage will be evenly coated with a layer of protective coating, i.e. the plaster form coating mixture. The strip body which is coated with a layer of protective coating is then transmitted to a drying means where heat is applied to solidify the protective coating to form the hard and durable protective coating shell. The protecting coating on the strip body can also be dried naturally in air, wherein the volatile agent will gradually volatilize so that the protective coating will be solidified to form the protective coating shell. About thirty minutes will be consumed for this volatilization step.